1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording apparatus, and in particular to a type of ink jet recording apparatus using a fusible ink.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Conventionally, this type of ink jet recording apparatus has been described by, for example, Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication (laid-open) No. Sho. 56-113462 (1981) and Japanese Patent Application Unexamined Publication (laid-open) No. Sho. 60-90775 (1985).
Such an apparatus heats a fusible ink in a recording head and ejects it toward a recording medium by an electrostatic induction force in accordance with image information, thus forming an ink image on the recording medium.
According to this type of ink jet recording apparatus, it is possible to effectively avoid the problems which tend to occur when using a liquid ink at ordinary temperatures, such as ink leathering on plain paper, and drying or solidification of the ink in the recording head, causing obstruction of the recording operation.
However, because fusible ink solidifies as soon as it reaches the surface of the recording medium, the fusible ink forms raised areas on the recording medium. These ink areas tend to peel off when the ink image on the recording medium is rubbed, causing unsatisfactory mechanical print stability.
Another problem is that incident light is scattered because of the convexity of the ink areas and the color effect is impaired when a color image is formed on a transparent film sheet.
In this type of ink jet recording, moreover, since the distance between the recording head and the recording medium depends on the thickness of the recording medium, the diameters of the ink dots formed on the recording medium are similarly variable. These differences cause extreme deterioration of the image quality on some recording media.